Contested Logistics Reimagined: The Case for Dual-Use Air Systems | The Pair Program Ep91

Speaker A: Welcome to the PEAR program from Hatchpad, the podcast that gives you a front row seat to candid conversations with tech leaders from the startup world. I'm your host, Tim Winkler, the creator of Hatchpad. Join us each episode as we bring together two guests to dissect topics at the intersection of technology, startups, and career growth. Welcome back to the PEAR program. I'm your host, Tim Winkler, joined as always by my, my co host, Shawn Leahy. Uh, yes, Sean. We haven't really regrouped since we got walloped by the, uh, the winter storm that took out, you know, bulk of the country. How did you, uh, how did you fare in the, in the chaos?

Speaker B: You know, I've always, you know, been interested in what would be like to live on Planet Hoth from Star Wars. And, uh, you know, I'm. We're in a week, two or week three of this now. Uh, you know, sometimes fun, mostly. Not mostly just really, really cold, uh, but hanging in there, surviving.

Speaker A: Yeah, man. Yeah. It's funny to see, like, uh, everybody's plans get derailed, like, everything as small as, like, parking spaces. Like, nobody can park where they usually park because their streets, uh, have been plowed in. But, um, I was reading some wars

Speaker B: on the streets of Winchester right now who are digging out parking spaces and then, like, going to work and then people coming in and snaking those, those parking spaces.

Speaker A: Oh, wow.

Speaker B: So, uh, I've heard in Boston that that can be, uh, that can be a capital offense, so.

Speaker A: Oh, there's some great clips floating around of Boston, folks just going at it with each other. But kind of related to today's topic, I was reading an article about how a major airline still trying to kind of get its operations back on track, uh, since their hub, you know, in Dallas got slammed, uh, with snow and ice, and it forced them to cancel, like, 10,000 flights. And it just made me think about how far downstream those ripple effects go, knowing, you know, it's not just flights, right? It's hotels, it's crews, it's cargo, it's schedules, uh, like a full blown, you know, logistical nightmare. So my question for you was, you know, do you have a bigger, biggest, like, airline nightmare story, uh, that you, that you lean into?

Speaker B: I've been, I've been lucky personally. But I can, I'll, uh, borrow from, from my mom here where she once had a situation where she, I believe she's flying through Dallas to a conference of some sort. Uh, weather issues, mechanical issues, something like that. They rerouted her a couple dozen times and she Ended up having to make the choice in Chicago whether to fly to the conference the day after it had concluded or fly back home. Obviously not that difficult of a situation, but she had this great tour of the American Airlines, um, hubs and uh, ended up not really going anywhere. So kind of a Kafka's journey across the United States.

Speaker A: I was going to keep American Airlines out of the uh, out of the, the story here, but uh, an American

Speaker B: airline carrier, that's what I mean.

Speaker A: Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, man. Um, everybody's got a good, you know, nightmare horror story. My, I have one during my backpacking days while stuck in Cairo, Egypt with uh, the canceled flight late night. So I pass out on the floor outside of my gate and, and I just remember getting woken up by a police officer holding like an AK47 asking me what I was doing. And I was uh, you know, just a, uh, uh, 20 something year old, just terrified. And it's like that moment you realize that you're, you're not in Dulles. You're not in Dulles anymore. Yeah.

Speaker B: D. Yeah.

Speaker C: And I add one thing guys, which is like, you know, there's, there's all these stories that happen to people like us and you know, it sucks at the moment, but then, you know, you get over it. But there, there's, there's a slew of people in the US that depend on aviation for, you know, basic necessity.

Speaker A: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker C: When, when stuff like this happens, it can be life or death for a lot of folks and, and even on, when, when it's sort of like a normal time, prices, uh, of goods end up being quite expensive because of, you know, as related to the cost of aviation. So, so it is a real thing, uh, when these types of weather events happen and even in general getting service, um, for, for cargo in remote places. It's a real thing in, in the world.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it's one of those things like when logistics works, you know, nobody's thinking twice about it, but when they don't, you know, everybody's going to kind of chime in as a logistics expert on like this is what you should be doing. This is what we could have been doing. But I think it's a good segue into uh, today's episode. So, you know, we're not going to be talking about storms or delayed flights, but we're talking about contested logistics, uh, and what happens when these supply lines are stretched. You know, infrastructure, you know, assumptions kind of break down and then that last tactical mile turns into the Last tactical thousand miles. Uh, and so this one's about how logistics is being rethought for a far more contested world, uh, where speed, scale and resilience matter just as much as innovation does. Uh, and so to tackle this, we've got two guests who approach this challenge from very different but very complementary perspectives. Uh, one is building the physical lift required to move real payloads into contested and infrastructure poor environments. The other spent decades owning global logistics risk for the entire Department of Defense, uh, and is now helping operationalize AI to improve decision making at scale across, uh, the mobility enterprise. And so, first guest, we've got Arthur Dubois, uh, CEO of Grid Arrow, uh, an aerospace engineer startup leader who's led multiple clean sheet aircraft from concept to flight. Uh, played a key role in scaling joby aviation, uh, awesome story there. Uh, and headed engineering at X Wing. And today Arthur is focused on solving contested logistics head on with what he calls the autonomous flying pickup truck, uh, that can carry, you know, thousands of pounds for thousands of miles. So. I know. Uh, Sean, did you.

Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to jump in here. I love on, on Grid Arrows website. It says Grid Arrow is building the pickup truck of the skies. And I'm here to tell you that right here on the border between Virginia and West Virginia, I know a couple of guys who have already sent their F150s airborne, right. It's kind of the amateur West Virginia Air National Guard. So I don't know if you need some more R D pointers from these fellows. I got a couple of phone numbers. You're probably doing a little bit more systematic, a little more responsibly, but the, uh, the efforts been made out here,

Speaker C: as it turns out, we're hiring. So yeah, m. Maybe send me a few resumes or even cell phone numbers.

Speaker A: You guys don't drug test though, right? Um, yeah, man, I'm excited to learn more about the, the cool tech you guys are building. Uh, and then alongside Arthur, we've got Leo Kaczynski. Uh, a retired Air Force officer who served 31 years. Uh, Leo is former director for Logistics for the Joint Staff. Uh, responsible for global logistics, supply chain risk and future multi domain distribution for the Department of Defense. Uh, Leo now serves as Chief Strategy Officer for Airspace Intelligence, helping bring AI powered decision tools into full production across defense and commercial domains. So, uh, Arthur, Leo, super pumped to have you both join us today for this discussion.

Speaker C: Definitely.

Speaker A: All right, now before we dive into the, the main conversation, we've got a little tradition here on the pair program. A warmup that we call Pair me up. We go around the room. We name a pairing of two things that go well together. Could be food, tech people, whatever you're kind of feeling. Sean, uh, why don't you lead us off? What you got for us today?

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm g. I'll keep it with our. Our aeronautical theme here. Um, I always pair whenever I'm flying, you know, flight with tomato, um, juice. It was something my dad always drank when he was flying around. He traveled a ton when I was a kid, and he always said, when you're, uh, when you're on a flight, get some, uh, tomato juice, spicy if they have it, and that's your beverage of choice. So it's pretty much the only time I drink tomato juice. But, uh, yeah, you'll. That's the old Shawn Leahy order. Um, in economy plus, you know, not to. Not to toot my own horn, but economy plus, I think you meant to say.

Speaker A: You meant to say Bloody Mary is what you meant to say.

Speaker B: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Strictly PG 13. Drink right? You. When you land.

Speaker A: Yeah, man. Get your veggies in. I love it.

Speaker C: Drink tonic. You know, Just tonic. Yeah. No gin at all.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, I'm. I'm the bad guy. I'm always going for at least some sort of a Jack and Coke or something to kind of ease a little bit of those. Those flight nerves. But, uh, uh, I dig it. Um, I'll have to trial that out, Sean, but I'll toss a little something extra in the. In my tomato cheese match.

Speaker B: You know, whatever.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'll jump in. Um, so, you know, spending hours, you know, shoveling out from. From the last storm, I go inside, kind of frozen, you know, solid. And my wife had this just amazing bowl of chicken, uh, tortilla soup waiting for me that she'd been kind of cooking all afternoon. And, uh, not just, you know, any tortilla soup. She added a block of cream cheese to the broth, and just a game changer. Made it real creamy, rich. Just, uh, kind of total comfort fuel. So, uh, for this week, my pairing is going to be shoveling snow and a hot bowl of. Of chicken tortilla soup. Let's pass it around. So, uh, Arthur, you know, quick intro and your pairing.

Speaker C: Yeah. R31, the CEO at Grid Arrow, and huge aircraft nerd. And for my pairing. So hear me out, friends. If you go to Belgium, you get fries. They come with mayo. This is fantastic. My personal preference is fries and mayo rather than fries and ketchup. I may get in trouble for saying that, but I'm going to stick with it.

Speaker A: I. I'm a huge mayo fan. I know there's a lot of people just kind of, you know, curling over right now and, uh, with disgust. But I think mayo is a great dipper for a fry. Um, or, or a mayo ketchup combo, you know, is not a bad one either if you, if you got both at your disposal. But, uh, fries and mayo. So, um, you spend, spend a lot of time in Belgium.

Speaker C: I, I actually grew up part of my life in France. So, yes, nice. Fair bit of time. And, and yeah, definitely mayo for. Man. I'm sorry, I'm gonna get in trouble. People are gonna reach out or something like that.

Speaker B: Yeah, we'll probably get some complaints for this episode.

Speaker C: Yeah, I bet.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great, man. Um, good. Ah, another food parent. I like it. Let's keep it, uh, let's keep it rolling. Leo, quick, uh, intro in your pairing.

Speaker B: All right.

Speaker D: Leo Kosinski, as you talked about, recently retired after 31 years in the Air Force. Started off really as well as a pilot, cargo pilot, C17s, C5s, kind of flying missions around the world. So at the actual front edge, tactical edge of dealing with some of the challenges with logistics. But later on my career kind of got in more of the general officer level for broader logistics supply chain. But I, um, this is a fun fact. I went to middle school, high school in Japan. Air Force sent me to graduate school and this Olmsted scholarship. I did an MBA in Tokyo and I was just returned. So I'm still on Japanese time. A week long trip in Japan, talking with industry, government and, uh, that. So to go back to the food theme and Japan's just very good about, you know, matches of, you know, things that are opposite that fit very well together. So kind of the cold theme could easily be having that green tea, sitting outside watching this, you know, the snowfall at some onsen kind of hot bath. But maybe is being more optimistic, looking towards the summertime kind of. One of my favorite dishes is called, um, a noodle dish, you know, ramen for that hiyashi chuka, which is a cold noodles with some ham and cucumbers, uh, and everything. And I was actually my professor when I was studying there 25 years ago, took me to supposedly the restaurant where they actually created that. And it's pretty popular, but it's, you know, hot summer, this cold noodles. Just a very nice pairing and, and just a delicious dish.

Speaker A: That's awesome, man. I like how you flip that too. It's like, it's not. A lot of people go to, like, it's. It's winter. They give like a pho or something, but you're in a hot summer. A cold noodle dish that's super unique.

Speaker B: Uh, if you're, if you're just joining the PEAR program, um, we are now a culinary themed podcast. We've reformatted.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: In the middle of this episode.

Speaker A: Yeah. Send us your favorite recipe now. Japan, some of the best food I've ever had in my life. Uh, never forget some of those, Those, uh, those dishes, the experience out there. They take a lot of pride in those meals. So, um, appreciate you, you resurfacing some of those memories for me. Uh, all right, Good parents all around. Let's, uh, let's transition into the, the heart of the discussion. So as a quick reset for our listeners, you know, here's what we're, we're looking to cover here. We want to start with, you know, how contested logistics is changing, uh, why it's, you know, no longer really a niche problem. Uh, we'll talk about design discipline, you know, why simplicity and scale can, can oftentimes beat over engineering, uh, from a design perspective. And then I want to, you know, dig into a little bit more of dual use. We, we cover this quite a bit on the podcast, uh, and why commercial and defense logistics are so deeply intertwined. Um, so let's kick things off with you, Leo. Um, you know, this phrase, contested logistics, it's, it's thrown around a lot recently. You've lived it, you know, at scale. So, um, on our discovery call, you, you talked about this problem through what you call the five Ds. Um, can you walk us through that framework and why logistics has become such a defining challenge right now?

Speaker D: Yeah, start off, like I said, kind of a career pilot, made one star general and moved to Stuttgart, Germany as the Director for logistics at US Africa Command. So 54 countries, just the huge scale and scope and the challenges there. And oh, by the way, throw in Covid. During my time there, it's already hard enough to move things around. So that was my first kind of entry to that. And then, you know, fast forward a few years later, I'm now got nominated and I, uh, became the director for Logistics for the Joint Staff Department, Defense. And so to prepare for that job, since I'm not a career logistician, did a lot of reading. There's books out there, Freedoms Forged by, um, Arthur Herman, kind of the history of logistics for the army in World War II. Lots of stories there. And in kind of reading through that, I think you talk about logistics is something you don't appreciate. I'd argue or posit that logistics in the sustainment is like oxygen really. Again, you don't realize you need it until you start not having enough and then it's almost too late to do that. So the 5Ds came about and I can kind of go list through them and talk through them and have it a dialogue. But uh, but it's, you know, really in thinking through what can we learn from the past, from World War II and all that and what's different and how do we need to uh, to really think about this, to overcome and succeed in condescensive logistics. So the first D is defense industrial base, which go prior to World War II was not where it needed to be. You know, after that we, we got everything in place. But you know, since after every war we have what's called a peace dividend, which makes sense. Your wars, you sacrifice blood, treasure. And um. And then, you know, after the war is won and you kind of, you know, kind of give that back, people go back to regular commercial jobs. You, you don't invest as much in defense. But you know, we did a big peace diven after the Cold War thinking that, you know, things would be if China's going to be our friend, you know, a billion customers and Russia might join NATO. Just not what, you know, what maybe was thought then isn't what came out. But the fact where we are now is we have a defense industrial base. I mean there's some efforts in the last few years, but really has been not where it needs to be. Um, and I saw this with COVID you know, things like as simple as trying to get face masks. I mean that's not a military thing, but just to do that Defense Logistics Agency, you know, couldn't produce those at scale. Then you fast forward to Ukraine, where we're supporting and providing all this equipment to Ukraine, which is the right thing to do. But then you take hundreds of millions of dollars to industry. They'll say, we'll take your money, but you're not going to see this product for five to 10 years. And so how do you scale that? That's the dual use piece of it. Um, me, I can list through this or if you want to kind of just, you know, kind of.

Speaker C: No, you're doing good.

Speaker A: Just kind of riffing on it, I think is, is what I was looking for.

Speaker D: And yeah, uh, that dual use means because, uh, when I was in the Department of Defense, really what we want and that is capacity. We want to be able to turn industry and say, you know, I want a million drones tomorrow. You know, I want to build this really fast. That sounds good from the.

Speaker C: But.

Speaker D: But if you go from the business side, if you want to get that capacity, it requires investment, long term contracts, hiring people and all that. And so you need capacity anyway. And so that dual use, whether it's manufacturing or the reality as you alluded to, is that day to day commercial or we have a lot of military planes and trucks and ships. But uh, day to day in peace time, majority of soldiers and sailors and equipment moves on commercial lift, airlift, sea lift and rail, same airports and all that. And then in time of crisis we're going to even need more. So how do you to build more for the defenses to have that dual use capability? You know, then the, the next one is data. And this is the uh, ability to kind of from supply chain to parts to all that, to understand the importance of that data and to be able to track things. You look at the. Just the US Marine Corps has like 70 different siloed logistics software programs. A lot don't talk to each other. And then you look across it, you know, how do you get that data together and how do you use that for decision making which is ultimate, um, ultimately important.

Speaker A: The.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker C: Did you.

Speaker A: Sorry, uh, if I missed the part distribution challenges was that the next is distribution.

Speaker D: Yeah. Even if you could fix defense industrial base and dual use, we can make everything we want here in the world, um, you know, here in the US and you've got the data and all that. The problem is is that our adversaries are looking at targeting our supply chain. There's a Chinese strategist, you know, thousands of years ago, Sun Tzu, they said the best war you fight is when you don't have to fight at all. If they can prevent us from uh, from producing or from the supply chain pieces or just you know, blocking, hacking into railways or ports and all that and not be able to distribute it, that becomes a challenge.

Speaker B: But.

Speaker D: And even if we can get out of our ports and get it to where we need to go, that last tactical mile in the Pacific is like the last tactical thousands of miles. And what the military, each service has done over the last few decades is taking that risk. We don't need as many ships, we don't need as many, you know, for the Air Force, smaller aircraft to do move things around because we didn't think about this contested environment. So Distribution becomes important. And then the last D in this whole thing is design. And this is where you design the equipment, design the processes, the whole, the policies, the training, tactics and procedures and everything to be able to produce things modularly. You know, rapid innovation, rapid build at scale distributed operations to support all that. So that's the uh, encapsulated quick kind of throwing those five Ds at you.

Speaker A: Yeah. And there's, there's multiple of those Ds that kind of carry over to, to what's relevant with what you're building, Arthur, and the problems that you're solving. So just bringing you in on this, you know, when you hear Leo just kind of describing that reality, you know, how does that map to the problem that grid arrow is actually trying to solve? What, what really jumps out to you from those D's that he's describing?

Speaker C: I mean to me the, the, the, the defense industrial base and the, the dual use piece are central. And there's a couple interesting things to think about when you riff on that theme because uh, I think when you talk about dual use then that means on the requirement side of what is it that I'm building for the military, if it's going to be dual use. Right. It can't be this like exquisite complex purpose built machine. If, if you're asking me to build a supersonic vertical takeoff stealth aircraft. Well I'm sorry but the commercial world doesn't really care about this. And so at uh, the policy level, if you want to go back to this idea of like leveraging dual use systems, then you also need to think about how you're going to approach a certain problem with that in mind. So at uh, the requirements and at ah, the demand generation level from the Department of War, you can then create uh, basically empower a dual use solution because it's very easy and we've seen it over and over through decades where there's a nice good idea that starts with this cool dual use product. And then somebody in the Department of War says wouldn't it be cool if it was also stealth? Wouldn't it be cool if it was supersonic? And next thing you know it's not at all a dual use product. So I think there's kind of like uh, uh, you can inject that thought process but it has to come partially from the department award. There are levers that can be pulled internally to trying to stop this whole requirement escape that's led us to exquisite military purpose, purpose built systems. Leo, I don't know what you think of that, but to me that's like one of the fundamental battles we fight on a day to day basis.

Speaker D: Oh, I fully agree. And it's even though the military, Department of Defense or war complains about it, but we do it to ourselves. Overdoing requirements. Yeah, it all changes in times of war, crisis. But what I think this administration is trying to do is to create, not necessarily create that crisis but uh, to think about that wartime maybe hence the name Department of War to think about. Because in wartime you're going to take risks. And the challenge is, is that there's no incentive at some of the bureaucratic level to take risk. You know, if you don't put that extra requirement in and somehow it's needed, you don't have this in, then that's a short term risk to your job or whatever, it makes you busy. But the longer term risk is you add all these things in and you, and it accumulates and the risk for the future is now you don't have that surge capacity now you have over engineered things that, that uh, that don't. There's a, I mean lots of examples of you know, things that we built the Victory ships, Liberty Ships rather where you know, you could, a ship that's just good enough in World War II that we could produce and eventually where you know, every day there's another ship, you know, taking five years and out a few months. And especially now it's all about the software. And we keep saying that but we still go back to like trying to you know, over engineer the, this, where it's, it's modular and I mean there's, you probably have had people that talked about the Ukraine drone kind of cycle of innovation, something that would take us, you know, traditionally since I'm in the military like five year kind of, you know, R and D and all that cycle they're doing in a few weeks the drone capability, counter drone from Russia, counter counter drone. And uh, we have to have that agility. So I fully agree with what you're saying.

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Speaker B: ask you this question from a founder perspective, um, as a CEO also, um, how do you maintain that kind of product roadmap discipline to maintain that dual use strategy and not, you know, I've seen this on a lot of uh, you know, so called dual use companies where they really end up creating parallel product roadmaps where they have their commercial offering, they have their federal or Dow offering and they kind of have some interchangeable parts but really they're just maintaining two roadmaps. How do you, how do you find, how do you thread that needle so that you can have a truly dual use product and maintain that going forward?

Speaker C: Yeah, it's, it's an everyday battle and it's very uncomfortable on the day to day basis. Um, I think the first thing about this is you have to learn to say no to some folks, um, and even go and argue with them as to whether they really need that stuff. You know, you have to do it incredibly respectfully and following the right channels. But at the end of the day there's certain things you have to decide upfront you're not going to do and you have to hold that line. Uh, I'll use vertical takeoff as an example. This is something that comes up all the time in our conversations. Nobody on the commercial side really truly cares about a vertical takeoff multi thousand mile vehicle. This isn't very useful. And so we got to hold that line because as soon as you do that we're going to 10x the cost of the platform and becomes bespoke. So what you got to do is like anytime you'd be tempted to add something, you have to really, really, really ask yourself like, how do you, what justifies, does it really buy its way on? Um, and you can create friction around the process of adding something and no friction around the process of removing something. You know, within your engineering team that's like in order for you to add anything, it's got to go through three layers of approval in order for you to remove anything. There's zero layers of approval. You could just do it. So, so these are some of the tricks you can play. But ultimately it comes down to conversations with the customers and being like, hey, look this direction you're going in, let me inform you about what it's going to mean down the line. And sometimes people kind of get where you're coming from and sometimes they're, they're like, no, um, I really want this vertical takeoff stealth aircraft. And, and then at this point we might be like, okay, well, that's probably not an avenue. We'll go after them.

Speaker A: Yeah, I want to kind of pull a little bit more on that design thread that, you know, One of those Ds that Leo pointed out. And, you know, you've been real explicit about Grid Arrow not optimizing for speed or elegance, but for, you know, range. You know, that last half to a mile that we kind of talked through, the payload, uh, the cost and the operability were some of those things that you highlighted when we first spoke. Um, you know, and, and again, like, we feel like we live in this world where, you know, aerospace is rewarding, uh, exquisite systems, you know, um, why was this kind of like, designed? Um, you know, like real discipline, simplicity, you know, the right call for you guys. What, what, what were you deliberately choosing not to optimize for when you were designing with Grid Arrow?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think so. So, so first off, we, we didn't start Grid Era with the design. We started Grid Era with like, the idea around the problem. And then we went out to, you know, talk to folks like Leo to try to understand, like, day to day, what is this problem? Like, what are the core assumptions of people that are living this life day in, day out. Right. And honestly, my belief is that most companies should start that way.

Speaker A: Yeah, Founders take note, that's super, super vital.

Speaker C: And, and, and some of the stuff we learned, just to kind of boil it down, one of the things was like, surv is no longer a thing. Like, for a cargo platform, Whether you cost $200 million or $20, these aircraft are going to be in trouble in a contested environment against a near peer enemy. And when you start from sort of that, that core assumption, then it leads you to look in different ways to get your, um, your network system to be resilient. And if you look back in history, right, like we didn't have exquisite aircraft, we just had a lot of aircraft. So when we talk to war fighters to try to understand the kind of environments they were operating in, the kind of risks their, their platforms were facing, naturally you come to that conclusion that one of the ways around this is mass. And, and if you look back, you know, World War II, we had 17,000 cargo capable aircraft in the U.S. that number is down to less than 500 now. And you know, of course these aircraft became fancy, they became, you know, $100 million incredibly capable machines. But now again, you're looking at a near peer fight with a modern enemy. And a, uh, C17 is at risk in those areas. And so our solution after talking to warfighter was like, let's focus on mass. Go back to what's worked for, you know, centuries of warfare and really build the platform around that. Specifically, once we realized nobody else was, you know, approaching it that way.

Speaker A: Yeah, I want to follow, uh, up the question that Sean and I really wanted to make sure we. We pointed out and asked, and I'd love, you know, for both of you. Leo, maybe you can lead us off.

Speaker C: Where.

Speaker A: Where do you kind of see, you know, over engineering, you know, kind of killing scale in. In defense programs?

Speaker D: Yeah. Ah, well, uh, I think. Yeah, I mean, Arthur kind of, you know, talked through some of that. I just go back to a few years ago, you know, on the Joint Staff, you know, the. The Red Sea was not permissible because of Houthis. I've never met a Houthi, but they seem pretty formidable with Shahid drones that, you know, probably Arthur or somebody else could.

Speaker C: Could make.

Speaker D: I couldn't, but, you know, like. Or a few. $10,000 or so. You can make that in your garage. And that's going against, you know, the U.S. navy's, like, best ships and capability, but it's this asymmetric thing. I mean, that drone, of course, we have highly capable stuff that can shoot it down, but our missiles are so capable. There's only so many of those. And, you know, I. I just didn't understand. I'm a joint officer, which means you have. You understand the Navy and Army and all that, but I'm not seeing kind of a, uh, not quite a proxy, but actually seeing kind of a wartime situation, not really a war with the Houthis, but seeing that and then seeing it, like reloading a ship, where it's. Yeah, they want to put everything they can on ship, but to reload a ship has to be in the port, and it's. There's, you know, millimeters of distances that you load these. These weapons. So, again, it's probably. Those weapons are exquisite. They're great. Um, but those are probably additional requirements that. That weren't thought through of, like, you know, as a warfighter, you want to be able to reload quickly. If you have to go sail someplace a couple days away just to reload your armament, that. That's. That's a challenge. So, um, and then it's, you know, the problem. A lot of this, you don't see it until you actually get to experience. And then again, that's like oxygen. By that time, if you don't have it, it's too late. But you know, through things in Ukraine and watching that through, you know, again the usage of drone and just some of the, the new characteristics um, of war and uh, uh, and, and then just seeing the asymmetric threat from you know, things like Houthi. I would just mentioned other thing that I was at Honolulu, uh, Defense Forum few weeks ago and uh, Admiral Paparo is a commander of Indo Pacom. He's been on record on this, but he, he talks about several meta trends. And you know, one of particular that's relevant to this is that this commoditization of, of unmanned vehicles and hypersonics, other these things which, you know, only, you know, a few decades ago, I mean the nation state need to do now, you know, Leo, since you can order something on Amazon and kind of make in my basement something that's capable. So, so one of the most capable things of the US Military has been things like uh, and this goes back to World War II assault forces, uh, amphibious assault, air assault. And those are always the advantage because we could kind of go over the horizon and be able to do that. This is this commoditization of, you know, the adversary, you know, being able to produce it at scale and mass. Not the best equipment, but good enough. I mean you have, you know, a thousand of these and you send enough, something's going to get through. And I think that's what that's done is it's put so much more risk now on those kind of assault forces. And so you either don't do it, you adjust differently. I think there's a possibility with things like Arthur and Grid Arrow are doing to be able to use that commoditization on our side for advantage. But uh, uh, I'm glad to talk more with just some thoughts initially on that.

Speaker C: I'll probably touch a little bit on how exquisite and supply chains connect here at least. You know, what typically happens in a program is you start with something pretty reasonable and then you might have an ask from usually somebody at the department award that say, well, what if your accuracy went from, you know, X to like a third, like x over 3 or x over 5? And I have this general observation after years of engineering that getting to a 90% solution will cost you 10% and getting to 100% will cost you an order of magnitude more. Um, and so there's a very nonlinear effect that happens when requirements even change a little bit from like, oh, this is something I can readily buy on Amazon, I mean made in the US but on Amazon type services. And I can, I can order them online and build them in my basement with let's say automotive parts. And then all of a sudden you get into this like other side of the business where because the requirements have changed just even a little bit, they sort of crossed that threshold where by now you're buying this aerospace specialized low volume supply chain. And you know, if you get on the wrong side of that curve, all of a sudden you have supply chain issues. Your cost of 10x, if you have to scale, you can't because there's not enough hardware. And so it's all about knowing how to stay on the right side of that curve.

Speaker B: Yeah, that brings up an interesting point in the non physical world around data, which is one of the five Ds that Leo kind of kicked us off with. Um, recently. Um, it was kind of discovered through a variety of different audits that when you get down to like tier 4, tier 5 suppliers in the defense industrial base, some primes don't even necessarily have full insight into where they're sourcing those deeper level subcomponents from. And um, you know, Tim and I on the, on the podcast have had companies uh, that specialize in that supply chain diligence, uh, because it is so vital, especially in the interconnected world that we have. So maybe Leo, we could start. I'd like to hear from both of you on this, but Leo, starting with you, um, just kind of talking about the complexity of data in logistics and how that's evolving, um, from the position that you're in currently at asi.

Speaker D: Yeah, I mentioned earlier just how at least within the Department of Defense, every service has all these different silo type of old systems. And that came about because someone has some programming capability and they came up with something and then it was great at the time, but wasn't a program of record and not to integrate something. That was frustrating for me getting a senior position for logistics across the Department of Defense. And we had previous Secretary of uh, undersec or Deputy Secretary of Defense, Kathy, they kind of gave a directive, a memo saying, hey, within the Department of Defense you need to share data. But still if I want to get data from DLA or Defense Logistics Agency or others, and it's not that they're doing something wrong, it was by policy, I still had to do an MOU within them. You know, we both work for the same boss. I've seen some guidance came out that that's trying to, you know, squash that, but you know, even difficult with within that. But that what I was trying to do at My previous job and Chris uh, Lowman who was uh, the assistant uh, Secretary of Defense for sustainment M. We were trying to work together and I think it's still possible is to get that you know from supply chain raw materials all the way through that whole lifespan. All that data needs to be to be part of it. Because a lot of times logistics systems or at least a lot of times I'd say the last several decades or a site, some something separate, you come up with your war plan, long range fires, you do that and then let's go see if the logistics stuff supports it. But the reality in any kind of large scale combat operations historically and now in the future, it's not a logistics isn't supporting function, it's the pacing function. You know, you're depending on where you can build and sustain and move that it needs to be tied in and then to be able to decide things at the speed of decision. So another part where drew me the company I'm working for now aerospace intelligence is previous job when I was at the Pentagon it was just tough to get a common operating picture. Just the holy grail. If I could just know how much fuel I have someplace and how many missiles and how we get asked that by my boss at that time, General Mark Milley during the Red Sea, where's the nearest fuel, how many missiles are on that ship? And it's knowable. But I almost had a sir, I'll get back to you and phone calls, spreadsheets, PowerPoint to be able to answer a question. By the time you answer it's already over. So it's good now. We paid some companies a lot of money to be able to have this dashboard that tells you kind of near real time. Okay, that's a good start. But what are you going to do with it? The real what the need is is predictive logistics, predictive analysis, what's going to happen, weather events, all that stuff. You could you know, with machine learning, artificial intelligence to be able to predict that the more accurate data, the more data sources you can bring in the better piece of that. And uh, especially if you leave logistics out, you're going to have what looks like a great solution and then you're going to go to war and you don't have any more, any mission or any munition or fuel or parts to, to do that. So I mean I think as you're talking Sean just that data piece just being inherent in the design and having access to it but then really leveraging all the technology and tools to to be predictive. And uh, I loved, I loved your

Speaker B: quote there, which is almost certainly going to turn into one of the clips that we'll make here of um, logistics is the pacing function. Right. It's almost a limiter on how fast you can go um, in combat operations. Um, that's just, that's such a better way to think about it than the, the classic way which is like it's the afterthought after you put together your whatever. So I still want to hear from Arthur on this but to ask you kind of a pointed question, not to put you too much on the spot, do you think that we're in a position data wise where that predictive logistics capability is on the horizon or is there still some gaps to be filled?

Speaker D: I uh, think we're in a position, it's just a matter of breaking through some of this. The access to, you know, why can't we share? And to be able to get that and then you know it's um, it really needs to be a team effort. The challenges. There's a lot of companies out there maybe trying to get after parts of this but they're not this from you know, there needs to be you know, some probably top down thing to make things interoperable, common platform to be able to share and to go across that and that's you know, different operating systems. I guess companies want to do that so protect their proprietary stuff. But then you have a bunch of different things that you have to have ad hoc solutions that aren't very good. So we need to be there. Yeah, I don't know how far People's Liberation army and all that but it just seems in the news reports that AI and that that ability for them just to direct within their government and military go do. I don't think they have the same talent and capital and everything that we have here but we need to kind of get on board with that common platform. So I have a long answer to the short thing. I think we're there but there's policy things some maybe sacrifice or collaboration or compromise needs to be done to be able to really move forward and achieve that. If don't uh, we're going to be too late and the further longer we take to get there, the harder it will be to eventually come together to get that.

Speaker C: Yeah, I'll comment on that from my perspective and just to be clear, like we're not trying to be one of these like operating system level for logistics companies. There are a number doing a great job um, from the company Trying to plug in into one of those. One thing I can share is like, it's been incredibly difficult to figure out what is going to be the standard. Ah, you know, what are the really like, data interfaces, if you will, between like one of our aircraft or a fleet of our aircraft and a broader logistics system. Because there is. No, not yet. I think an agreement at the technical level on what that has to look like. There's an agreement that everybody needs it, but I don't know that, that um, if you're a company like us, we know tomorrow exactly how to design our system. We're trying to make it as modular, as interoperable as possible and as simple to interface with. But ultimately there's some hooks there that still need to be worked out.

Speaker A: I want to pull a little bit more on the commercial side of Grid Arrow's business. Um, one of the things that I was just kind of watching earlier this morning, uh, that I found fascinating with, with one of your interviews was on the commercial side, you know, the, you know, the uh, the labor, uh, market for pilots. Right. Um, and why, you know, uh, you know, grid Arrows systems are so appealing. Can you talk to me a little bit more about some of those commercial uh, use cases that you're finding through, you know, your building and market research with those customers?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And it's actually an area that I'm super excited about because I think I learned a lot since starting the company. The, the place where I think near term it's most appealing is, is really support to remote communities. There's people who rely on essential air services. There are places out there where like a gallon of milk is like 10, 15 bucks. Right. So I mean it, we don't see it necessarily in the bigger cities, but when you go to the edge, um, it's, it's, it's very real. And, and there's now population density that's decreasing in some parts of the, some of these parts of the US because folks can't afford basic goods. And so the first thing I'm excited about here with the commercial offering is really start trying to go after these types of opportunities. Um, and really obviously it's a commercial mission, but it's also something where I think we can do some good. So that's the first thing. And then of course over time as we think about commercial. Right. It's like once we create a more uh, cost efficient operation and I'll talk a bit about how we do that. Right. It's really the beauty of America. It's capitalism Once you have something that's cheaper and that provides the same service, then you can go and start to look at deploying that broadly. So obviously, beyond basic supplies, we can think a lot about E Commerce, uh, uh, within the U.S. which is a huge market. So that's kind of the story on our commercial angle. And then I think the thing that's really important when you look at any product in the commercial world is unit economics. And so you really have to look at. If I'm a legacy airline, um, so some of these airlines are called feeder cargo. They fly small aircraft for remote places. Often, um, their economics are terrible because the aircraft is too small to justify the cost of a pilot. Right. If you put a pilot in a Boeing 747 freighter, I mean, sure, the cost of the pilot isn't a big deal. If you put in an aircraft that carries a thousand pound, it's a massive deal. It's the biggest deal. And so what we can do going autonomous here is really fix the cost structure and improve the margins of these operators. And then on the pilot side, to kind of end on your, your question, uh, there's a huge pilot shortage. And flying these small aircraft is just about the least appealing job these pilots have. So, um, in order to become a commercial pilot, you have to have flown 1500 hours. Um, to fly these cargo aircraft, these small ones, you need 1200 hours. So what you'll see is people do their training, they get to 1200 hours, they get a job at these airlines, they stay for 300 hours, which is like about a year, uh, and then they go out to find a better job. So this is really kind of a transitional spot for them. They're having a heck of a time finding pilots. The year over year turnover of pilots in the industry, in this industry is like 80%. It's crazy. And so there's a huge shortage. Nobody really wants these jobs so much. And so autonomy is kind of a, uh, shoe in for these types of operations.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's so intriguing how like the, this different feedback that you receive from the commercial side, you know, starts to make your mind spin about how to, you know, impact defense building and then vice versa on defense, how it can impact on, on the commercial side. Uh, really, really neat stuff there. Uh, Arthur, Leo, we haven't really talked a ton about ASI and a little bit more about what you guys are doing. I'd love to hear a little bit more. I was reading the press release, you know, about, uh, a big win, uh, within the Air Force Um, transitioning like AI driven mobility tools, uh, into full production. So a couple of things. One, maybe just tell us a little bit more, um, on the solution that you guys are rolling out here and how. I'm always curious, we always like to share this with founders, uh, that are building for defense. But how you kind of move from, you know, experimentation into, you know, full on like, uh, operational impact.

Speaker D: Well, yeah, glad to do that. I think it ties, you know, there's some parallels with Arthur saying about autonomous, you know, flying being able to augment or supplement or take over where, you know, where it's just too expensive or we just don't need the human in the loop. The ASI story maybe is similar about going out there to see the customer. So the founders, there's three that uh, back about five, six years ago, started off in autonomous driving and they're in Silicon Valley doing that. One from Germany, two from Poland and there are a lot of people doing that at the time and they did pretty well. But there's a lot of competition there. But they took away a lot of learning and they thought with this, where can they take this learning and where are some critical industries that maybe have some outdated technology? Exactly what Arthur's trying to get after with, with gridaero. And so they went. None of them were pilots, but they went to air traffic control centers and went in to center and expected some mission impossible glass screen or anything, but they saw was like a green screen with a radar blip and with someone with seven computer screens open and trying that individual having to be the integrator and then working with that, working with airlines. So it really started on the commercial side. The dual use story about how do you work with Alaska and then United and Delta to help with their flying routing, dispatching that predictive analysis to be able to look across the globe and figure out from weather forecasts, other political things, how busy airports will be to optimize whether it's fuel savings, moving just um, uh, efficiency effectiveness to keep planes from out of turbulent weather, the whole thing. And so there's huge savings and learnings from that. And so that's once I did that about two years ago, did a series B raise. And now we're looking into defense. And since then, and this is a really, what's big, an emphasis on the uh, with the uh, current administration, previous one too. And this is where I think Garo is great, that commercial off the shelf. Do you have something that's, you know, a viable solution, a termite, which I didn't Know, before vaporware, you know, it's nice you, everyone has to dream about something. But to have an actual prototype now with Gro, that's, that's in testing and with aside actually have customers that are, you know, supporting right now 40% of the, the US aircraft, commercial aircraft flying around the world and now bringing that to uh, to commercial, to the, the government. And so first with Air Mobility Command, helping with their command and control and visualization and optimization of things in there. Now air Operations Center, U.S. transportation Command Opportunity with it. So it started off aerospace. So I kind of think of three M's. The first, you know, is a multimodal, um, so you know, first aerospace, but really to look the future, you have to look at um, space, cyber, maritime, ground to be able to provide the optimum optimized solution. Then the second M is kind of the main mission. So as we talked about, logistics has been kind of a sideshow. But logistics is the pacing function needs to be tied in with operations. So in the military we spent a lot of money on operational command and control software and all that efforts and then have this logistics thing. It needs to be inherently tied in. Those are things we're trying to do. And then the third M is that uh, multinational is a fact, especially logistics. Uh, in the Pacific, in Europe, you pick a place we rely and work together with allies and need them to be integrated. So if we have a great solution that's worked commercially now for the US military, how we tie that in with Japan, with NATO and other allies. And so it's, it's exciting because it's able to achieve things that I were, you know, wish I would have had a few years ago. And now with, you know, you know, similar to Arthur, you know, he's hiring the best, you know, brightest minds at asi. We've got just amazing software engineers that are, want to solve big problems. I'm not that smart, but I know some of those big problems because I've been dealing with those for 30 plus years and be able to articulate that work with the software engineers and then with the military to come up with these solutions. So uh, yeah, it's, and, but it all ties in. It's at 5Ds because grid arrow is solving great things. But that's just one piece ASI solving a piece. It's this. And there's probably more than 5Ds but this, it's this ecosystem of web of things to really get after contested logistics. And there's no one silver bullet. You need to be able to do all this and tie it in ultimately that uh, the guiding principles are really are in that design and that data piece.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and say it too. I think LEO could teach a masterclass on acronyms because you nailed it with the five M's. M and the, uh, I'm sorry, the five DS and the three M's. Uh, it's super helpful. It's actually really, really helpful for me to look back like. Oh, yeah, that's what we did talk about this 5D. So, um, that's really cool. I uh, love the, you know, that transition from like air traffic control and commercial into drone domain awareness is a huge, huge issue. So I love kind uh, of seeing some of those parallels when you go from the commercial use case into defense. Well, you just kind of put a bow on the innovation that both you guys are doing. I love to just kind of close with, uh, sharing with our listeners what they can be excited about over the next few years when tracking both Grid Arrow and asi. I'll start with you, uh, Arthur, uh, what's on the horizon? I know that, uh, you guys are anticipating first, uh, test flight soon too. So maybe just share some news with uh, with the listeners on what they can expect.

Speaker C: Yeah, for sure, uh, happy to. I mean, look, uh, it this for those who, who know the company is probably going to be more of the same thing, uh, because. And you know, there's a reason for it which is, you know, we risk some capital. We could all easily go and get excited about tangential projects. But I think what we really want to do is get really laser focused on building our aircraft to the world. So what you can expect in the next few years, certainly flying some aircraft, but also not just testing, but also starting to bring them and to uh, put them in the hands of War fighter, whether that's demo exercises, some loans and stuff like that. So we got a number of things kind of in the works and the goal really being to Leo's point is like, let's prove that this isn't vaporware, this isn't a rendering. This is a thing that exists in the real world that can really carry cargo on representative missions as quickly as possible. So that's really a laser focus, um, some of the stuff we're working on the side, there's a couple variants of the aircraft we're looking at. There's small modifications that we're looking at doing for selected opportunities. So we really think of our airframe as something we can easily Mold and shape. Ah, that's not the case necessarily. For everything we do there's certain core system but when it comes to adding a little bit more, a little bit less metal, um, uh, that's something we can easily do with the construct of our company and the kind of manufacturing systems we explore. So um, big focus on building the aircraft to life and then uh, uh, a few surprises probably along the way.

Speaker A: Very cool. And some quick hitters. Where are you guys based? Uh, Headcount funding. Uh, give a little bit of insight into those areas.

Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. Uh, we're based in San Leandro, California. It's near Oakland. For those who don't know, uh, we have a team of about 20 awesome kick ass engineers. We're going to be hiring probably another 10 or so. And then um, we just raised a $20 million series.

Speaker A: A very cool, awesome. Leo, how about uh, ASI? Just a little bit uh, of something our listeners can get excited about, uh, the next couple years.

Speaker D: Why don't you do that first of just kind of following up with just some great arrow stuff when just hear Arthur talking through that. When my time in US Africa come in to be able to have that capability in the Pacific, you know that because, and this ties into ASI because the, if you look at the future kind of operations of war, it's just distributed operation. The Air Force has what's called agile combat employment that air or army, Navy, all the same thing basically. You know traditionally you fight out of one big base because that's the most efficient. But that becomes a big target. You start moving out. Distributed operations. That sounds good. But now your logistics support is exponentially tough. And so how do you solve that? That's where this distribution piece is key. The other piece is where what ASI and that really advanced AI and machine learning and everything that can really bring that data fusion to be able to help optimize movement not just with air but multimodal through all that. So I think ASI obviously continue with the commercial piece, the any kind of critical asset. So uh, power grids we're looking at up in Massachusetts because the same thing we got networks, you've got potential outages and how do you optimize that. And then you know, with the defense and um, you know going especially in Japan, I think some opportunities with multinational are just exciting I think and it's, it's just you know tying in helping support the war fighter, helping to really provide that capability which is technically there. It's just, it's uh, again for the reasons you know, Sean was saying it's just tough sometimes to, to break through those barriers. We have to get there. Yeah. So, uh, and then just quick me hit Points or the PowerPoints on the ASI. So headquartered in Boston, offices in Washington, also in Gdansk, Poland and Denver. When I joined a little under a year ago, 70 employees. Now 150 and most like Grida. We're hiring like, like crazy. You know, look, and same with gar, you know, getting some of the, the best of the best out there and a great place to work. So it's exciting because there's lots of the, these problems. AI is moving very fast and there's maybe that's for another podcast on that, but there's still, you know, critical areas that, that, that have tremendous capability, you know, that could be achieved through, through that and you know, tying into, uh, great capabilities like the Cordero and the flying pickup trucks, which I, again, as a logistician, I wish I had, you know, plenty of those during some of my.

Speaker A: Such a catchy title too. You don't, don't think that's not going to play a part in, uh, you know, getting some extra eyes on this thing. Flying pickup truck catches attention for sure.

Speaker C: Like everything we do, it's trial and error with, with customer feedback. In this case, it was media and I was just, I think I blurted it out during, during an interview. And then Jonah was like, oh, let me take a note. And everybody's like, oh, let me take a note. So, so it kind of just stuck.

Speaker A: Oh, man. It's a marketing masterclass. Right? Itself there too. Very cool. Well, thank you guys for sharing, uh, the, the, the what's to come, uh, for both of these, uh, innovative companies. And uh, to close out, we do a fun little rapid fire Q and A segment we call the five second scramble here. Um, you know, quick Q and A. Say the first thing that kind of comes to mind. Try to keep it within five seconds. Um, Sean, why don't you lead us off with Leo and then I'll close with Arthur.

Speaker B: All right, Leo, I'll admit M. I'm a little bit nervous because I'm used to answering the questions of flag officers, not interrogating them. Um, but yeah, quick Q and A here. So number one, what is the, uh, key cultural component at asi? What defines your corporate culture?

Speaker D: I think just the speed. Speed matters. And so that's, uh, yeah, it's been great to a quick answer, but that's. You know, sometimes we say that in the military, but we don't act on it.

Speaker B: So that's speed matters.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Number uh, two, just a quick couple of open roles, um, as specific as you can be that you're currently hiring for at asi. That just helps some of our listeners who might be uh, good matches, uh, you know, find you guys.

Speaker D: I think probably development leads, business development for military, you know, different modes, maritime and you know, ground some of that piece. And then obviously, you know, best and brightest of the whole range of software engineers.

Speaker B: Great. And uh, then final kind of business question is what's one trait, one key trait that you always screen for when you're hiring, uh, into asi?

Speaker D: I think that passion to be able to kind of think through kind of where the ultimate goal is. And I think a lot of that independence, that's the thing I like about a young startup company. Just to be able to um, just. Yeah, I think that vision, uh, initiative, uh, independence.

Speaker B: Great. So if you're a passionate and driven kind of autonomous business development pro, developer, development lead, um, ASI could be a good fit for you. All right, so now a little bit easier questions. What's one piece of consumer technology that you wish had military grade durability?

Speaker D: Oh, uh, probably my, you know, phones. Just because I have three kids and if I think about the number of times they or all that that would be.

Speaker B: Well, there's a difference between military grade and kid proof. Right. Kid proof is. That's a, that's a much higher requirement.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Pamel Lucky needs to come up with a whole kid line for his.

Speaker C: Yeah, angel kids.

Speaker A: Andreal kids.

Speaker B: Um, Leo, what's the weirdest thing that you've had to explain to a room full of generals or you know, administration executives.

Speaker D: Yeah, it's like the weirdest thing.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Or most memorable unclassified discussion.

Speaker D: There's probably plenty of examples of that. Uh, but more of a. Yeah, this isn't a 5 second thing but new kind of a leadership lesson and more of a. Was it a squadron commander in a place called the heavier lift wing in Papa, Hungary, this multinational E17 unit? And uh, yeah, we were just starting out and I think some of the weirdest thing but just you know, some, some, maybe some cultural misunderstandings and kind of to talk through kind of some things there. So.

Speaker B: And you. Sorry, I just missed it. You were, you were in Papua New Guinea.

Speaker D: Um, Papa Air Base, Hungary.

Speaker B: So we airfrees, Hungary. Sorry.

Speaker D: 12 nation multinational C17. You know we stood up about uh, 15 years ago flying three C17s. Really unique mission set. But there was a few things that were Starting out just, uh.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Gotcha.

Speaker D: Podcast.

Speaker A: Yeah. You need to write a book, Leo. You got so many stories.

Speaker B: I'm sure, uh, going back to acronyms, Tim brought up that you. You've got some good ones. What's, uh, maybe one of your most memorable or most fun acronyms that, uh, can remember from your, uh, time in service?

Speaker D: And these should all be easy questions. Yeah, I guess. Favorite, I guess. Uh. Oh, actually, so I was in. I flew C17s out of McCort. I was the wing commander out there up in Tacoma, Washington. We have a. This fourth squadron, which is unique in that they do this nuclear airlift mission and also just a great cultural thing. And they have this fflp. Fly Fight, Live Proud. And so you kind of do these fours and a bunch of photo ops. But that, uh. And it just. It's a cultural kind of, you know, squadron thing. But that's.

Speaker B: That's great. Fflp.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker B: Very nice.

Speaker C: My favorite thing about acronyms is acronyms of acronyms. I. I need to think of one. Maybe I'll. I'll have to take a minute. But it's crazy. Like, this actually exists. And I don't know if, like, if you have acronyms of acronyms of acronyms, I just don't know how deep it goes. There's a secret society somewhere, I guarantee you.

Speaker B: Uh, Leo, what's, uh, something that doesn't have to do with work or your career that you're surprisingly good at? What's kind of an interesting skill that you have?

Speaker D: Anything. I'm surprisingly good at, uh, you know, living in Japan. Uh, uh, speak Japanese. I don't know how proficient people speak, say I'm pretty good, but I still don't. But I think maybe that's unique thing, especially being there. Although there's plenty of foreigners who speak Japanese. But, you know, still, I get surprises when I get asked something and I, you know, start answering Japanese.

Speaker C: Yeah, I've heard you really good, Leo. I've. I've heard great things.

Speaker A: Can you. Can you give us a little like, uh, you know, welcome to the PEAR

Speaker D: program in Japanese Pair program. Yokoso.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: Boom. Now we're international. International.

Speaker C: You just be.

Speaker B: All right, Leo, just two more questions. Um, what's a book, an article, a movie, some piece of media that you think everybody should read or view at least one time in their life?

Speaker D: Well, I guess I'm just stuck with that, uh, couple books. One is that the Freedom's Forge? I think if you're in this kind of defense industry, just to be able to see. Although it doesn't give you all the answers, but I think that's important. Another one called the 100 year marathon, which is China Hand that just kind of talks about, you know, where China's going and, and maybe what it. So I think those just were helpful to frame um, some things that I think the average person, even average person in the military doesn't quite understand. And uh, so I think those are both helpful things to read in this area.

Speaker B: Awesome. And then last question, our traditional final question on the, on the peer program. What's um, a corporate philanthropy or charitable organization that's near and dear to you that you want uh, people to know about?

Speaker A: Oh yeah,

Speaker D: there's you know, obviously quite a few good ones out there. Uh, uh, I'll give some, some props to an organization called American Corporate Partners. And so this is a, uh, it was founded by a banker who um, you know, lost a lot of his people, you know, company or people died in 911 and wanted to kind of give back to, to the military and kind of all that. So he helps with that transition for veterans and all that. Which um. Yeah, so I say that because as a, I've. There's other programs like that in my career as a, you know, leader in the military. I've directed people there. You know, this is a great program for kind of internships or mentorship. And I talked with the, the founder of it. He was trying to do something with the joint staff because previous chairman of the joint of staff like 25 years ago or more helped um, with the stand up of it. And so I remember him. You know, I'm not thinking I'm that good, but yeah, I don't, you know, don't need to ask for his help or anything. But.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker D: Hey, let me see your resume. So I remember giving my resume. He was looking at it and uh, you know, things in the military, like I said, I had 15 years of executive leadership experience because I thought, hey, that's when I'm a colonel above or. But Also I have 31 years of this and just says like Leo, you know, you guys, military guys are so precise. But you've just confused me. Long story short is after having that talk I realized no matter what rank you are and all that, what your experience, it's helpful to, to get help and, and do that. So match me up with uh, the organization with a CEO of a big company that just to over the course of a year just to talk through transition stuff and work stuff and just all that and, and uh. Yeah, so it was okay, maybe a little more than needed, but just. Yeah, that's. That's others out there that help transitioning veterans and, you know, other folks as they go through that.

Speaker B: And the name one more time was you said American Corporate partners acp. Awesome. Thanks so much. Thanks for doing the five second scramble.

Speaker A: Yeah, good stuff. All right, Arthur, you ready?

Speaker C: All right.

Speaker A: All right, let's rock and roll. Uh, if Grid Arrow were a restaurant, what would be its signature dish?

Speaker C: Um, burger and fries. Simple, right?

Speaker A: Classic.

Speaker C: Straight to the point.

Speaker A: Yep. A little side of mayonnaise, maybe. Perfect. What kind of roles is. Is Grid Arrow hiring for over the next three to six months?

Speaker C: Um, mechanical engineer, software engineer, systems engineer, flight test engineer. Um, it's probably the big picture.

Speaker A: Every. Every kind of engineer over there. Yeah. Um, what's one thing about the culture at Grid Arrow that would surprise folks looking to join?

Speaker C: Surprise. Um, oh, yeah. I think we're pretty allergic to kind of rabbit holes, and we make decisions very quickly, sometimes with incomplete data, which a lot of engineers are like, oh, my God, this is crazy. I must, you know, check everything, and my answer to them is, no, you must not. You don't need to. You can proceed.

Speaker A: Sounds like our podcast at times. What, uh, of all the aircraft, uh, or systems that you've worked on, which one taught you the. The hardest lesson?

Speaker C: I mean, I think the Joby S4 that I worked on, because I worked on, on it the most, and it's the most complex one. So there's just a million lessons in there.

Speaker A: Yeah. And. And you saw them through such rapid scale and growth.

Speaker C: That's right. That's right. That's right.

Speaker A: Do you have a favorite kind of business leadership book podcast that you would recommend to early stage founders?

Speaker C: I do. Like Radical Candor. Uh, it's a framework around feedback and how to help people improve in a way that sometimes is a little uncomfortable, but I don't. I believe that it's important to get uncomfortable to grow.

Speaker A: Very cool. Uh, what was your very first job?

Speaker C: Um, let's see. I was selling. I was in the sports department at an equipment store.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker C: I was moving boxes around and helping customers.

Speaker A: That's awesome. If you could put any sports car in the skies, what. What sports car would you. Would you go with

Speaker C: any sports car? I. I would probably grab a McLaren or something like that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: I, I, you know, I don't own a McLaren. I wish I did, but I'd put one in disguise.

Speaker A: Yeah, good answer. Who's somebody in the greater defense tech ecosystem that you think would be a good addition on our podcast.

Speaker C: Oh, that's a good one.

Speaker A: You already recommended Leo, and that was a home run. I know. I had to. Had to nurse you for another referral.

Speaker C: Yeah. Could, um, I recommend. I mean, I think I'm going to play the self interested card, but I think you should talk to, uh, James Gurdovich, our chief strategy officer. He's got, he's got a lot of cool war stories too, and transition stories. So this is a bit of a cop out because, ah, I'll need.

Speaker A: Now. I dig it. Yeah. Honestly, because there's so many different topics that we could probably hit with him. So for sure. What's, uh, what's an activity that helps you kind of unplug from, you know, from startup world?

Speaker C: I've been playing basketball since I was 5 years old, so I still play every week with the same group of guys. It's been 15 years. And so it's, uh, it's. It's the way I keep the pressure off. It's a big part of my life.

Speaker A: That's cool. Uh, and then last question. What's a charity or corporate philanthropy that's near and dear to you?

Speaker C: I'm gonna go with Engineers Without Borders. I think. I think I'm a big fan of the way they're approaching trying to solve problems, uh, in sustainable ways across the world.

Speaker A: Very cool. Yeah, we'll give both of those a plug, uh, in the show notes and, uh, Arthur, Leo, this was a really fascinating conversation. Thanks for helping us kind of unpack, you know, contested logistics and so much more. So appreciate you guys joining us on the Pair program.

Speaker C: Thanks for having us. It was awesome.